So Very Dark

…Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our vacations….

Yet again, feel as though I was JUST putting the finishing touches on my Real and Imagined Creatures project, and wondering whether my strange and somewhat rambling psych paper would gain me an ‘A’ for ingenuity or a ‘C’ (the worst grade EVAR) for being strange and somewhat rambling…but it could not have been as recent as it feels, because tomorrow is the last day of my break.

However, unlike some breaks past, I feel not that my time was squandered or empty.  Despite the fact that the first official day of my vacation was spent at the dentist after some truly fiendish sourdough bread managed to mangle a filling, in this case, the old adage about how quickly time passes when one is enjoying one’s self and keeping busy is, I think, quite apt.

First of all, I spent a great deal of time (as one might guess by the flood of work I’ve posted in the past two weeks) snuggled up with my tablet, drawing for hours and hours.  I didn’t, by any means, achieve all goals or finish all projects to my own satisfaction…but I got much more done that I imagined I might*, and completed both work purely for my own entertainment and work commissioned by others.

However, despite the fact that my customary spot on the couch is beginning to retain a perfect likeness of my backside, I DID occasionally leave this spot and do other things.  Occasionally even the fabled ‘stuff outdoors’:

-Last Wednesday, I went into town.  I visited the gym, found a pretty post office and braved public transportation during rush-hour…at the end of my journey was a session of Game, during which we came up with some awesomely awful ideas for how to breach our opponent’s defenses.

-Last Friday, a little late-season heat prompted Anna and I to return to the park in which exists Jackson Falls.  Instead, however, of heading straight for the swimming hole, we decided to wander down the trail and play in the stream a little.  Two amazing things happened:  first, Anna caught a trout.  With her hands.  It was truly amazing.  Second, the stream we were walking down eventually lead to a river.  Not one of the local three giants, but a perfect little swimming river called the Kiskiminetas.

-Last Saturday, we took our annual trip to Penn’s Colony.  It wasn’t bad — it certainly helped that we managed to make the trip on a day that we were not destitute, and were thus able to bring home fudge and cocoa and purchase a lunch without fear of financial failure — I had my first turkey leg.  Or, half a turkey leg, I suppose.  We shared it.  I will concede that it WAS delicious…but it still didn’t hold a candle to the sandwiches we used to sell at the roast beef booth.  Overall, the trip was…okay.  I think I have been missing  the  ferverous excitement of Faire, which a puritanical colonial reenactment somewhat lacks.

-Last Sunday, however, was the true day of fantastic adventure.  Briggs and I returned to the Jackson Falls park (I’m not sure if it has an official name…I think the area is known as the ‘Roaring Run Watershed’?)  Anyway, we hiked down to the river, then decided to take the very well-maintained trail (a Rails to Trails kind of thing) that followed the river in either direction.  We walked to it’s somewhat visually stunning terminus (the area is thick with really big rocks)  a few miles down, then headed back.  Inevitably, it was suggested we take another trail back, and just as inevitably, we ended up scaling a pathless hillside that was nearly vertical and covered in slippery leaves that hid treacherous hollows between rocks.  We eventually ended up back on a trail that went up and down and around and finally dropped us off right back by the little beach at the river.  I took a quick dip to rinse off the sweat and grime and then we embarked on the final leg of our trip back to the car.  By the time we got there, it was verging on dark, and exhausted and hungry, we grabbed a pizza and went home.  I am hoping to do it again tomorrow, going the other direction down the river.

Since then, I have pretty much been here, working on projects.  A few days were drizzly, but the past couple have been more sunny.

On Monday, I begin my internship, and on Tuesday I begin my fall quarter.  Farewell, sweet break.

*On a related note — this year’s calender is almost completed.  “But Ra,” you muse, “isn’t it only October, and barely even that?  Is it not tradition for you to be scrambling at the very last minute to squish work into the appropriate page layout…at times not finishing until after the new year has been rung in…occasionally LONG after?”  well I have decided to break with tradition this year.  Sorry.  On the other hand…there is a chance of people getting calenders on TIME this year, so there’s that…and now back to our regularly scheduled programming.